Chain of Evidence (5 page)

‘Stay with them for the evening; they’re strangers and deserve courtesy at our hands,’ she said to her three scholars. ‘Fiona, would you find Fachtnan?’

To Rhona she said, ‘My scholars will look after you and see that you both have a good time this evening.’ And then in low voice she added, ‘And I would be very obliged if you would keep an eye on Fiona and make sure that she doesn’t drink too much or go out of your sight. Fachtnan will manage the boys but he has no control over Fiona.’

‘In love with her, probably; she is a pretty girl.’ Rhona gave an amused glance after Fiona and said thoughtfully, ‘The local boys will be careful as they will have you to reckon with – I know how respected our Brehon is, back home in Scotland – but I’ll make sure that Stephen Gardiner behaves himself. It looks as though he is coming also.’

Despite the cold wind, the mountain of Mullaghmore was as beautiful as ever. Orchids, violets, primroses and tiny gentians, as darkly blue as the Atlantic Ocean itself, lined the pathway as they began the climb. Mara and Turlough went slowly allowing the younger and fitter people of the kingdom to go ahead of them, stopping from time to time to admire the orchids, much to Cormac’s annoyance. He’d tire soon, she knew from experience, and then Turlough could carry him for while and after that they would have a good excuse to go back down and relax over one of Brigid’s splendid dinners. Her housekeeper was a wonderful cook and at the time that Mara had left for Poulnabrone she had been already brewing sauces from sundried mushrooms and making a wonderful paste from the well-preserved small tart fruits of the bird cherry tree that grew in the little woodland outside Mara’s house.

‘What’s this about Garrett MacNamara taking a second wife and suddenly producing a son of fifteen?’ Teige O’Brien, cousin to Turlough and
taoiseach
of the O’Brien clan on the Burren, joined them.

‘And never turned up today to ratify the whole business, or so they’ve been telling me,’ said Turlough. ‘Strange fellow – wanted his fifteen-year-old son to be elected as
tánaiste
instead of young Jarlath over there. Fine fellow, Jarlath, you’ll get on well with him, Teige. We met at the crossroad and came on here together. I liked him. Had some great tales to tell of his sea voyages.’ He whispered something in Teige’s ear and the two of them laughed uproariously as if they were back in the days when they had been foster brothers and schoolboys together and Turlough’s uncle, Conor na Srona – he of the big nose – had been lord of the three kingdoms, Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren.

Jarlath, as well as Stephen Gardiner, noticed Mara, had joined the party of her scholars and the couple from Scotland. Fiona would be having fun, she guessed, but felt confident that Rhona would keep matters under control. The woman had a firm look about her. Her grey eyes were full of resolution and her height and broad-shouldered figure gave her a look of authority.

‘I’m going to ride on Bran’s back,’ announced Cormac after another five minutes had elapsed.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Mara firmly. ‘A dog’s back is not strong enough for a big boy like you; see if you can get up to the next terrace and then we’ll all have a rest.’ It was good for him, she thought, to know that actions had consequences. She had explained to him that he was too young to climb a mountain and he had insisted on coming with his indulgent father. He would be exhausted tonight but it would do him no harm. She would get Fergal and Conall, her husband’s bodyguards, to carry him in a ‘wounded man’s lift’ for part of the way back and that would delight him.

‘We’ll have to get him a little pony,’ said Turlough, looking lovingly after his youngest son.

‘And one for Art,’ said Mara firmly. It was a rule with her that anything Cormac had, his little foster brother had to have, also. She didn’t want her son growing up thinking he had to have special privileges. He’d soon settle down once he started school and had his daily tasks and the discipline, she told herself and looked around at the beauty that surrounded them – the silvered limestone mountains all around and the very blue lakes below.

Mullaghmore, like most of the other mountains on the Burren, was a rounded mountain, shaped into spiralling terraces of limestone rock, layered one on top of the other. The young and the fit climbed straight up, making for the top terrace in the most direct way even if at times it meant hanging on with fingers and toes. Mara and Turlough followed the general crowd and sauntered around the terraces, content to make slow progress with their rapidly tiring son.

‘We’ll just walk around this terrace and then quietly come back down on the other side,’ said Mara as Turlough swept Cormac into his arms. ‘Go on, Bran, go and find Fachtnan. Good boy. Stay with Fachtnan.’

He was a well-trained dog and though he looked at her for a moment to make quite sure that she did really mean it, he obeyed her almost instantly. She had a momentary qualm about sending him from her side, but he would enjoy himself with the boys; it would have been disappointing for Bran to return so soon and Fachtnan would take good care of him. Once again, she thanked her lucky stars that she had thought of keeping Fachtnan on as an assistant teacher when he had eventually scraped through his final examination. He was supposed to be studying for a qualification of
ollamh
(professor) but he had a terribly bad memory and study was a torment to him. He was now almost twenty-three years of age, and perhaps, she thought, he had gone as far as his capabilities would allow.

Cormac raised a protest when they turned to go back, but was distracted by the immense view of land and sky that spread out below them and of the lake in the distance which reminded him to demand to be taken out in a boat.

‘In the summer,’ said Mara as she seated herself on a rock and looked down at the empty fields below her. Cormac seemed drowsy and a short sleep would refresh him for the journey down. She was content to sit, sheltered from the cold wind by the mountainside and to look at what she firmly believed to be the most beautiful view in the world: the limestone shining silver and pink in the setting sun and the lake’s deep blue reflecting the sky above. Spirits were high – the good weather of the day had brought a wave of hopefulness back to the farmers and she heard many plans being made for the month of May by those who passed them.

Almost the whole of the Burren were on the mountain by now, she thought. Very few houses had smoke coming from them, the roads were deserted, the fields empty . . . Her eyelids drooped as she leaned against Turlough’s broad shoulder and a minute later she knew somewhere in the depths of her mind that she, like her little son, warm and heavy in her arms, had dropped off to sleep.

‘Oh,
shluagh
, the cows are out,’ said Cormac, using a favourite word of his foster mother’s. He sat up very straight, instantly wide awake in the way that young children can be and Mara opened a sleepy eye.

‘What!’ she said. And then a moment later she heard the noise that his young ears had already caught. It was the sound of hoofs hammering onto a limestone surface. It was not just a few cows out from their field, though. This thundering that they were hearing came from hundreds and hundreds of cows. She stood up in alarm and moved over to the edge of the terrace and looked back down towards the south-east of the mountain. From above their heads came cries of anger.

And then the direction of the crowd turned abruptly. Men and boys who had been struggling to be first to the top of the mountain turned around and began to hurl themselves down the rocky slopes. They were stopped abruptly, though. Suddenly above the clamour of dismayed exclamations and oaths came the ‘
be-be-be
’ mountaineering call. Everyone stopped and peered upwards at the low-set squat figure who had climbed to the high tip of a boulder. Muiris O’Hynes had taken charge, as he had done so often in times of danger or disaster.

‘Don’t waste your time going down that side. You’ll be behind them,’ he bellowed. ‘I’m ashamed of you all. Aren’t you cattlemen? Don’t you know that the way to get cattle to run faster is to chase them? You saw the beasts – they’ll be at Noughaval by now. Soon they will be running up the Carron Road, and then down past the castle. We know where they are going, don’t you? They’ll get them through the border of the kingdom, at Abbey Hill, and then they’ll have them on O’Flaherty land and they can take their time. We’ll go down on the north-east side and get in front of them before they reach the border, head them off.’

‘And any man who can catch one of my young horses grazing in Glencolumkille valley is welcome to borrow it,’ called Ardal O’Lochlainn, chieftain of his clan and a breeder of champion racehorses.

‘What are we waiting for?’ yelled Muiris, brandishing his knife. ‘Let’s go!’

So many knives were brandished, their polished surfaces catching the dying rays of red from the sun that for a moment it seemed as though the bonfire had been lit after all. No further words were spoken though; the people of the Burren were now grimly determined that no one was going to rob them of the fruits of their hard labour.

But into that sudden cessation of sound, the war cry from the raiders rose high above the thundering hoofs of the cows, ‘O’Donnell
Abú
.’

The words were a shrill scream of defiance and Mara, looking sharply up at the group of her scholars who were being shepherded down the hill by Fachtnan, stared straight into the amused and unsurprised eyes of Stephen Gardiner.

Stephen Gardiner – Cardinal Wolsey – Henry VIII – Donegal – Territory of the O’Donnell – of O’Donnell who had sold his birthright to bend the knee in front of an English king, Henry, the Eighth of that name; O’Donnell who had given up his birthright and his kingship in order to call himself ‘Earl’
.

Thoughts flashed rapidly through Mara’s mind and suddenly she began to understand.

‘Turlough,’ she breathed as he got to his feet, deposited little Cormac on her lap and strode to the edge of the terrace. ‘Turlough, I beseech you not to go. This is a trap. O’Donnell is trying to entrap you and perhaps send you to England. Don’t go; I beseech you. Leave it to other, younger men.’

‘O’Donnell! That lap dog of the English!’ exclaimed Turlough in tones of such loathing that Mara realised she had made a mistake.

‘Let’s go back to my place, Turlough, and we’ll pick up horses and men-at-arms there,’ shouted Teige O’Brien. ‘Go on, you fellows,’ he dismissed his followers with a peremptory wave, ‘get down the mountain as quickly as you can and meet us with some good horses.’

‘By God,’ said Turlough with satisfaction, ‘we may not be in the front of them, but O’Donnell and his cattle raiders will wish that they had never been born by the time that we catch up with them from behind.’

Mara breathed a sigh of relief. If Turlough was with Teige O’Brien and a detachment of men-at-arms – and, in addition, was behind the raiding party and their pursuers, not much harm could come to him.

‘My lord, may we go with you,’ shouted Aidan as the law scholars and their companions came tumbling down the steep, rocky path. Fiona, Mara hoped, was staying with Rhona and her son.

‘Certainly not,’ said Mara swiftly, before Turlough could say anything. ‘I am responsible to your parents for you. In any case, Cormac and I need you to guard us and escort us back to the law school.’

‘I’m going to beat up O’Donnell,’ shouted Cormac.

‘We’d better go back to Cahermacnaghten and get your sword first,’ said Fachtnan swooping up the small boy and placing him on his shoulders. Mara looked at him with gratitude. He was loyal to her and would make sure that the scholars got back, unharmed, to the law school.

‘You’ll come, Jarlath, good man yoursel
f
?’ shouted Turlough over his shoulder as he lowered his bulk down from a precarious hold on a protruding rock. Fergal and Conall, his bodyguards, swung themselves down behind him, their eyes racking the surrounding mountain anxiously.

‘I’ll be ahead of you, my lord,’ called back Jarlath, bounding vigorously in the opposite direction, towards the north side of the mountain. ‘I’ll pick up a horse at Carron Castle and root out Garrett, too. We’ll need ropes and things. He will lose all of his cattle, I’d say; by what I saw, they’re headed in that direction, but hopefully we’ll get them back.’

‘And what about you, Stephen?’ queried Mara ignoring the sulky faces of Aidan and Moylan. This would be the moment, she thought, when he would slink away and find some means of joining up with O’Donnell and going back to England, probably on an O’Donnell ship. However, he surprised her.

‘I’m not very war-like,’ he said with a slight grimace. ‘Could I form one of your escort – Cormac will protect me, won’t you, Cormac?’ He reached up and patted the little boy on the head.

‘I’ll chop the heads off all the O’Donnell clan when I get my sword,’ promised Cormac with a patronising assurance. He shook Stephen’s hand from his head, wriggled down out of Fachtnan’s arms and marched ahead with dignity.

‘What about Rhona and Peadar?’ asked Fachtnan, looking back up the mountain.

‘You shouldn’t . . .’ began Mara hastily and then stopped. She had been about to say, ‘you shouldn’t have come down without them’,
but then realised Fachtnan’s dilemma: he had to stay with Moylan and Aidan; for two pins, these two would have been off chasing the cattle raiders. A slight discourtesy to Garrett’s relations was of little importance compared with keeping safe the boys that she had placed under his care. She held her hand up to shield her eyes from the setting sun and then to her relief saw Fiona’s bright yellow hair and behind her the tall figure of the Scots woman and behind that Peadar, all making their way slowly down from the terrace above. A few minutes later they were all in front of her.

‘Will you come back with us to the law school?’ asked Mara hospitably, hoping that her housekeeper, Brigid, had enough food in her store cupboard for three unexpected guests. Turlough, she hoped, would be back within a couple of hours, with his bodyguards and probably Teige and some of his men might be with him. There would have to be a late-night supper prepared for them. Her celebration dinner for two people would have to be stretched to accommodate the pair from Scotland and the man from England.